Echoes of summer
by Weiila
Summary: Oh my, it's the seventh year at Hogwarts for Harry and his friends. But something is not like it used to be. Hermione has undergone a very... very sudden change. Might a certain Slytherin boy have something to do with this?
1. One morning it suddenly happened

Echoes of Summer

Chapter one; A new year, a new girl

She woke up slowly, bit by bit becoming aware of her existence after leaving the world of dreams behind. Still the night's velvety curtains gently caressed her mind, beckoning it to stay in the unconscious lands for a little longer.

'Maybe just… a few more minutes…'

Hermione yawned and pulled the warm blanket closer around her. So soft…

Her lips curled into a smile as the memory of her dreams surfaced into her increasingly awake brain. It had been sweet, and warm… somebody's smile and arms encircling her waist. Not quite a bad start of the day.

The day…

Her eyes shot open. The clock on her bed table blinked its 5.34, in guilty silence. The alarm had chosen the first day of school to not work for the first time in its existence.

"Augh!"

Hermione flung the covers aside and leapt out of bed, pausing only to pull the blanket away from the protesting Crookshanks, who's sleep at the end of the bed got cut short by his owner's outburst.

As she bounced towards the bathroom, she heard sleepy, confused murmurs from her parent's bedroom. Though feeling a little guilty for waking them up earlier than usual, Hermione knew that they would understand.

This was not any "first day of school", after all. It was the first day of school in her last year at Hogwarts. So many last minute things to prepare, so little time… she had to get ready!

Hermione quickly splashed water into her face and then grabbed the tube of toothpaste and toothbrush from the shelf on the wall. While brushing her teeth she grabbed a hold of the hairbrush and proceeded to untangle her hair. Good thing she was a woman and thus had decent capacity for doing two things simultaneously. Too bad she was so stressed that a few very important details avoided detection.

The bigger brush easily glided through her hair, meeting surprisingly little resistance. Hermione only felt grateful about that, and soon put the hairbrush down. She hurriedly rinsed her mouth and then scurried downstairs into the kitchen. Still in her pyjamas, she ran around like a whirlwind which had suddenly decided to make breakfast. Plates, forks, knives and cups landed on the table, just barely avoiding smashing each other in Hermione's fury to get ready.

Once she had loaded four slices of bread in the toaster and the pot of water was on the stove, she dashed back upstairs to get dressed.

"Morning, dad!" she said upon passing him in the corridor.

"Mhpshgruh…" Mr. Granger yawned, scratching his hair as he headed towards the bathroom.

The human brain works slowly when suddenly awakened. Not before he picked up his toothbrush did the dentist react. He blinked several times, trying to put the pieces of information together into a proper picture.

Meanwhile, Hermione tore off her pink silk pyjama with reading, thoughtful teddy bears on and dove at her closet. She had packed almost everything already, but left the things she planned on wearing on the train behind for this occasion. A black bra soon covered her budding breasts, and she changed her white knickers for a purple pair with black laces within seconds. Never did she have time to notice the uncharacteristically stunned stare she received from Crookshanks.

Just as she pulled on a red, tight t-shirt, her father poked his head inside the room.

"Uh… Hermione?" he said.

"Sorry dad, I have to get dressed now…" she replied while sticking her left leg into the depths of a pair of jeans.

"It's… really important, sweetheart…"

The blank tone of his voice caught her attention and she looked up. Absentmindedly she began buttoning the jeans, only to realize that something was askew. The waistline of the trousers seemed to have shrunk from yesterday when she did a quadruple check to make sure they were still her size and thus would not cause her any trouble this morning.

She paused and looked down at herself.

"Wha-"

Mrs. Granger chose that moment to stumble inside her daughter's room, despite her sleepiness curious about what all the commotion was about. She froze, jerking completely awake as she saw Hermione.

"Oh my… what…?" she stuttered.

Without being able to say a single word, Hermione staggered past her shocked parents and back into the bathroom. There, she for the first time looked into the mirror properly.

She had changed over the night.

Her once bushy, playful hair now fell straight down her shoulders in a copper coloured waterfall of thin threads, embracing her head and creating a thin frame for her face. The first confused thought surfacing was that it looked like her head had shrunk.

But that was not all that the mirror unveiled. Hermione had gained curves in all the right places, going from a seventeen year old teenage girl into a seventeen year old woman. A sexy woman too, one of the last working parts of her brain had to admit.

Hermione slowly reached up and rubbed her eyes.

It did not change a thing. The same image stared back at her with just as much confusion as before.

She took in a deep breath, and screamed from the top of her lungs.

'-'

Ten minutes later she had stopped hyperventilating, but her teeth still chattered and she refused to crawl out of the blanket she had swept around herself in the first few minutes of shocked daze. On top of that, her left arm was turning red from all the pinching.

'This must be a dream, this must be a dream, pleasethismustbeadream…'

She pinched herself again. The now alarmingly tender skin and flesh throbbed with pain, and it did not help this time either. She remained assured that it was, in fact, not a dream.

She could hear Crookshanks slink around outside of her soft cavern, and felt his soft little body press against its walls now and then. He was obviously worried, but his worried touches did little to help. They only reminded her of how utterly alien she felt.

"Sweetheart…"

Mrs. Granger kneeled in front of the heap of cloth lying on her daughter's floor.

"Sweetheart, are you sure you haven't used any magic that might have caused this?" the woman softly asked.

"Yes!" Hermione's muffled voice replied from the depths of the blanket, "I haven't done anything, mom… not anything!"

Mrs. Granger bit her lower lip, trying to think of a way to deal with this situation. Truth to be told she never really believed that her daughter would bring something like this upon herself even by accident – by now Hermione was far too skilled and experienced to do faulty experiments. Not to mention that she would never break the rule forbidding her to use magic out of school – though that rule had been made more lenient in these dangerous days.

"Uh…"

Scratching his head, Mr. Granger stepped into the room.

"Hermione…" he started, "I'm sorry, but… we have to leave for King's Cross soon."

'I can't go to school like this! No!'

Hermione's first reaction was a panicked wish to hide deeper under the blanket. But as the reality of the situation began its march into her skull, her rational side finally managed to wrestle the shock into the ground.

She had to go. Once she returned to the wizarding world, somebody would be able to help. Dumbledore or Madame Pomfrey would surely have some solution, since this change by no possible logic could be natural. Why somebody would… err… enhance her, Hermione still worked on figuring out, however. Now that she was calmer, she could even think clearly about it.

Why would anyone do something like this except for twisted humour? Though what had happened to her was a horrifying shock, it hardly seemed dangerous… was it a cruel practical joke?

She frowned.

Joke?

'Maybe Fred and George… yes! That has to be it!'

This would be just like them, after all.

The idea that the twins could be behind the whole spectacle calmed her, enough to make her stand up. With or without proof, the possibility made sense and was thereby enough to offer her comfort for the time being.

At least until she lost balance and swayed. Her mother, who also had gotten to her feet, luckily managed to catch Hermione's arm and save her from falling.

Hermione gave her breasts a dark scowl. The added weight was far more than she was used to, and it disrupted her movements. She could not for the life of her understand how she had failed to notice it earlier, despite being in a prepare-for-going-to-Hogwarts panic.

Sighing in annoyance, she – carefully – dropped the blanket on the bed and tried to smile at her parents, whom both watched her with great concern.

"I'll talk to the school nurse as soon as I get to Hogwarts," Hermione said, "I'm sure she'll be able to help."

The sight of relief flowing into her parents' features made her feel even more secure, and the smile widened.

"Very well then," her mother said and squeezed Hermione's shoulders, "let's hurry up and have breakfast so that you can have this mended as soon as possible."

"All right-"

Life works in mysterious ways for characters in a story. Often, one strange event will overlap another, but normally they get to have a small breather in between.

No such luck today.

There was a knock on the window.

For some reason Hermione felt Certain Doom gather around her as she turned around – nearly loosing her balance again – and saw a greyish owl blink at her from the window sill. It held an envelope in its beak.

Crookshanks gave an excellent proof of a cat's sixth sense by hissing and burying his claws in the carpet.

Not without suspicion, Hermione hurried over to the window. She accidentally hit her hip bone on her desk and gasped in pain, biting back a frustrated snarl. Rubbing her overgrown and bruised side she clawed at the bolts keeping the window closed and opened it. The owl fluttered inside and landed on the backrest of the chair by her desk. The envelope fell onto the pillow beneath.

"Are you all right, Hermione?" her father worriedly asked, hurrying over to her together with his wife.

"Yes… ow…"

Hermione picked up the letter. It wore the Hogwarts' insignia.

In the fourth dimension, Certain Doom smirked.

"What in the world…"

Hermione opened the envelope and pulled out the letter inside.

_Dear Miss Granger,_

_I am pleased to announce that due to series of interesting events, you have in the last minute been chosen as Head Girl of Hogwarts. Congratulations, and please, do come to my office at the first chance you have, so that I can congratulate you personally and inform you on the details of your new duties. _

_ Sincerely,_

_Albus__ Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, member in good standing of the International Confederation of Wizards, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry_

Hermione read the letter a couple of times, imitating the owl's blinks as she went.

What had that been about a "not quite a bad start of the day" earlier? Even counting the time when she turned herself into a catgirl, this day went down in history as the weirdest of her life.

So far. She had a very bad feeling about this convoluted start of the new year.


	2. At the ol' trainstation

Chapter 2, King's Cross

_"You're going to suffocate!"_

_"It's a risk that I feel quite willing to take. As soon as I get on the train I'll change into my robes, I promise."_

Hermione staggered into King's Cross station, breathing heavily and trying to think about penguins and icebergs. At this rate, letting people see her deformed body seemed like a rapidly shrinking problem. She felt very grateful for her parents; her father pushed the heavy trolley with her bags while her mother remained at Hermione's side, prepared to catch her daughter should she faint.

The autumn warmth outside and the collected body heat of all the people inside the train station came at the young woman in a merciless onslaught, laughing at her attempt to maintain her dignity. Five layers of clothes had really, really not been a good idea.

And for every step on the way towards platform 9 ¾, dread filled her throat with an intensifying taste of bile. Already Hermione could see Harry's stunned look and hear Ron curse one moment before they both demanded an explanation that she would not be able to give them.

Hopefully she would be able to hide herself in a car on the train, to keep from being seen by too many people. Even these clothes, and later the robes, could not completely hide the fact that something was highly awry.

She gritted her teeth at the mental image of wide-eyed, giggling and shocked students – and especially smirking Slytherins. They would simply adore this.

'I'm going to kill Fred and George!' she snarled in her own silent mind.

'Provided it _was_ them,' she reminded herself a moment later.

Oh, this was just heading downhill, and fast.

She looked up and squinted ahead, trying to clear her mind. It worked like a charm. Kind of.

About twenty yards away, she spotted a young man with pale blond hair and a rat-like face.

Ooh no…

It seemed as if the crowd parted just to offer her this, to add to the list of "bad start of the year".

And Draco was currently turning her way, too.

Hermione clenched her jaw, trying to prepare a few quips to shoot back at Malfoy's soon-to-be-incoming attacks – in her current physical state, he would surely find loads of fresh verbal arrows. But she would not allow him an easy match. Never had, never would.

But her mouth was so dry and her head feeling heavy, it was hard to think…

"Oi! Mr. and Mrs. Granger!"

Ron's voice had never sounded sweeter to her ears.

The redheaded Weasley cavalierly of six plowed through the parting crowd, forcing it shut again in the last moment. Ron led the attack, waving his left arm in a frantic greeting while he with the right dragged the trolley bulging under the weight of his baggage. The senior Grangers nervously raised their hands to wave back, and tried to glue smiles onto their lips.

"Where's Hermi- _bloody hell_!"

Bingo.

Hermione closed her eyes with a sigh, and her now much longer eyelashes unpleasantly tickled her cheek.

The crash made her look up.

Ron's surprise had caused him to stop dead, which led to Ginny crashing into him. Fred, George and their parents followed, and all six of them ended up in a heap of arms, legs and bags. Ron and Ginny's trolleys drifted into the nearest people of the crowd, whom moved aside with surprised and irritated grumbles.

In her haste to dive onto her knees to lend a hand, Hermione forgot about her breasts. She overbalanced but managed to catch herself on her hands in the last moment.

Ron stared up at her reddish, sweaty face and spoke.

"Hermione, you're… what the hell happened, you're… fat!"

For a moment, the world seemed to come to a halt.

The full reality of what he had just said surfaced in Ron's brain surprisingly quickly considering his confused state. Still looking up at Hermione, who did not seem to give off an overheated image any longer, he gulped.

The silence seemed loud enough to deafen the poor, misguided boy.

"Really now."

Hermione stood up without giving Ron a second glance. She brushed the dust off her knees and turned to the rest of the Weasleyan heap.

"Fred, George," she said, "have the two of you possibly been experimenting with something for changing the shape of a person's body?"

"The shape…" said one twin.

"…of the body?" the other finished.

They exchanged glances above their father's wildly jerking arm.

"Nope, just body parts," they finally chorused, looking back up at Hermione.

"Facial ones, mainly," the second one said.

He _might_ have been Fred.

"One blown up ear or the nose, for example," a possible George said.

"The whole body is no real trick to ballonify, after all," Fred said, grinning, "look at what Harry did when he was just a wee third-year."

Hermione let out a deep breath to calm herself. All the things that had happened since the morning, combined with the heat, were beginning to give her a severe case of frustration.

"It is not just a part of my body," she said, keeping her voice as neutral as she could, "several things have changed."

Ron finally managed to make it out of the heap, and stood up for a closer inspection of his friend. With the knowledge that he had managed to butcher the opening line of today's meeting, he made an attempt to make a more intelligent statement.

"Yeah, it looks like you need to wash your hair," he said.

Fred and George bowed their heads and groaned, while Ginny hissed in anger and Molly made an attempt to lounge at her youngest son and press a hand to his mouth before he managed to get himself killed. Arthur, meanwhile, still was too busy trying to extract himself to notice such details as his own flesh and blood making a complete fool out of himself.

Hermione did not even grace Ron's staggering efforts with a reply. Instead, she cleared her throat and turned to hug her parents.

This turned out to be a complicated business as well.

"Good bye, mum- ow!"

"Oh no, so sorry, dear!"

"Bye da-"

"Careful with that, Hermione…"

They all had to try an reach a disturbing lot longer than usual to hug each other good bye.

"I'll write you as soon as this thing has been mended," the daughter promised, fighting not to show her irritation.

"We'll be expecting relieving news, of course," her father said with an encouraging smile.

"Don't worry, I'm sure Madame Pomfrey can take care of it," Hermione said, smiling back.

She turned to take over the trolley from her father, but as she pulled at it a passerby stumbled into the pen on wheels and caused two bags and Crookshank's cage to fall off. With a gasp Hermione flung out her arms and despite a panicked second when her breasts got in the way again, she managed to save her pet from the crash. The clumsy passerby stammered an excuse, but it was almost drowned by Crookshank's furious hissing. The man quickly disappeared into the crowd.

Sighing both with relief and irritation Hermione began picking up her bags, when a bigger hand came into view and snatched one of the heaviest ones right under her nose. Hermione looked up to see a blushing Ron, with his lips tightly pursed, heave the bag onto his own trolley. Before she could stop him, the other fallen one followed. This despite the fact that the wagon already seemed overloaded.

"It's going to fall," Hermione protested, reaching out to take her luggage back.

"Over my dead body," Ron growled through his teeth.

Without looking around, he began pushing the trolley towards the waiting pillar. Hermione was about to hunt him down to talk sense into him, when a hand touched her shoulder. She turned around, looking straight into that special, motherly smile that only Molly Weasley could produce.

"Let him do as he pleases, dear," the married woman kindly said, "it's his way of trying to apologize."

Hermione hesitated for a moment, but arguing with that smile was simply an impossible task even for one of Hogwart's finest students. In the end she gave up and nodded, forcing her own lips to stretch a little. She hoped that she gave a brave impression.

It seemed as if Molly felt satisfied with the result, at least. She turned to hug Ginny goodbye, taking over her daughter from Fred and George's combined bear hug. Hermione turned to Crookshank's cage, still in her left hand, and tried to whisper a few soothing words to the exasperated animal.

"This isn't caused by those 'miracle diet products' the muggles talk about on their big pictures, though?" a man's voice thoughtfully said.

Not even the heat and her frustrating situation could keep a real little smile to creep onto Hermione's face at Arthur Weasley's curiosity. She looked up at him and shook her head.

"No," she said, "I'm afraid not. However I'm certain that the people making those products wish they did. It cannot be done without magic, though."

"Of course, of course…"

Arthur nodded, staring off into space for a moment as he pondered.

"It was just a thought," he eventually added.

"I'm very grateful for the concern," Hermione assured, "I'll go see Madame Pomfrey about it as soon as there is a free moment at Hogwarts."

"You do that," Arthur said with another nod, watching her with mild worry, "and go straight to St Mungos if you need special care, you hear?"

The thought of her affliction being so complicated that the school nurse would be unable to help her, dropped a sinking feeling straight into the depths of Hermione's stomach. Knowing she needed to remain calm she nodded, clearing her throat in an attempt to hide the new discomfort from the man who had caused it.

"I will," she pressed out, avoiding eye contact by placing Crookshank's cage on her trolley again, "but for now I better get going."

She grabbed the handle of the trolley and headed off, waving over her shoulder to her parents and the Weasleys. However she had not gone far before the sharp groaning of another trolley's wheels announced the arrival of Ginny.

"I'm sorry about Ron," the little sister said through her gritted teeth.

Hermione glanced at Ginny, noting the faint blush on her cheeks. The youngest Weasley had reached that special age when she felt like she had to be embarrassed for all the shortcomings of her family.

"It's not your fault," Hermione said, trying to smile a little again.

They had to stop the dialogue there, because the pillar leading to platform 9 ¾ stretched up before them. Ginny motioned at her friend to go first, and in her already exhausted state Hermione felt no inclination to decline. She checked the crowd around them and rushed through, to her other world.


End file.
